Here is a link to a good essay in Public Discourse by Justin Dyer. Pro-lifers know that Justice Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade relied upon a terribly mistaken history of abortion. Blackmun’s historical account has been refuted so many times that it is somewhat surprising that the same arguments are being made on the abortion rights side in briefs presented to the Supreme Court in Dobbs.
In his essay, Dyer explores this issue in detail. He concludes his treatment with this paragraph:
“The law office history that buttressed Justice Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade was wrong at the time and it is wrong today. That remains true, even if the two leading organizations of professional historians have shamelessly signed on, yet again, to the project of constructing a fictional abortion history that will advance what elite academic opinion deemed long ago to be the proper ideological goals.”
Richard Myers
Richard S. Myers, the Vice-President of UFL, is Professor of Law at Ave Maria School of Law, where he teaches Antitrust, Civil Procedure, Conflict of Laws, Constitutional Law, and Religious Freedom. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Kenyon College and earned his law degree at Notre Dame, where he won the law school's highest academic prize. He began his legal career by clerking for Judge John F. Kilkenny of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Myers also worked for Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in Washington, D.C. He taught at Case Western Reserve University School of Law and the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law before joining the Ave Maria faculty. He is a co-editor of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition: Contemporary Perspectives (Catholic University of American Press, 2004) and a co-editor of Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy (Scarecrow Press, 2007). He has also published extensively on constitutional law in law reviews and also testified before Congressional and state legislative hearings on life issues.
Married to Mollie Murphy, who is also on the faculty at Ave Maria School of Law, they are the proud parents of six children - Michael, Patrick, Clare, Kathleen, Matthew, and Andrew. http://www.avemarialaw.edu/index.cfm?event=faculty.bio&pid=11705E7D4E0111010366
